programming with max/msp - Virtual Sound

1.1
4
Theory
sound or sounds that we have specified will be rendered. 3 Between the
time that this stream of digital data is generated and the time that we actually
hear the sound, another fundamental operation occurs. The computer’s
audio interface transforms the digital data into an electrical signal that,
when fed to an amplifier and loudspeakers, will produce the sound. The
audio interface, in other words, converts the digital data into an analog voltage
(a process often abbreviated as “D/A conversion”), allowing us to hear
the sounds that are represented by the stream of digital data. (Fig. 1.1).
Fig. 1.1 Realtime synthesis
We can also capture the stream of data to our hard disk as an audio file, which
will enable us to hear the result of our algorithmic processing as many times as
we’d like.
When the stream of data goes directly to the audio interface as it is processed,
so that there are only few milliseconds between the processing and the listening
of the synthesized sound, one speaks of realtime synthesis. When the
processing of sound is first calculated entirely and saved to an audio file (which
can be listened to later) one speaks of non-realtime or offline synthesis. (In
this context the latter term is not a technical one, but it is widely used.)
Fig. 1.2 Non-realtime synthesis and listening as separate actions
3 In numeric form.
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Paragraph 1.1 - Sound synthesis and signal processing
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from “Electronic Music and Sound Design” Vol. 1 by Alessandro Cipriani and Maurizio Giri
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